"Happy Anniversary," Tom told me this morning. I had to stop and think - what anniversary? It's not August or September. Then I realized it was the 13th - a Friday the 13th.
We got married on a Friday the 13th. It was supposed to be on September 25th,1982, the one-year anniversary of the night we met in Kenny Stabler's Diamondback Saloon in Houston. But Tom's dad worked at a bowling alley back then, and he couldn't get away during league season.
We tried to move it to Saturday, August 14, before leagues began playing. That turned out to be a Holy Day. So that's how we ended up getting married on Friday, August 13, 1982. Ever since then, we consider Friday the 13th a lucky day. Every one of them is an anniversary.
Still, I'm surprised that Tom thought about it today. In the very beginning of our relationship, he soared way above the top of the scale as far as being romantic and affectionate goes. He asked me to marry him (and I said yes) just two weeks after we met. He hid my engagement ring in a box of Cracker Jacks, for goodness sake. On our one-year anniversary - the September 25th one - I came out from work one evening to find my car newly waxed and filled with flowers, cards, and even a beer chilling in a bucket of ice. He loved to surprise me. He loved to be with me. He thought of me when we were apart.
However, over the course of our twenty-six years together, he has slid nearer the bottom of that scale. I guess it's only to be expected in a marriage. There are so many things to think about - work, kids, health issues, money, bills, car and house maintenance, money, bills, kids...money...
He'll still surprise me every once in a while: for our anniversary a couple of years ago, I came home and found him playing a set of drums in the livingroom. I didn't think he had even heard me when I said time and again that I wanted to learn to play before I turned fifty. Once our house was built, and there was no space for a drum set, I figured that was one dream I would have to scratch off my list. But he had been keeping an eye out for a set on Craig's List. I still consider that one of the most romantic things ever done - is there a contest somewhere I could enter him in?
This past summer we held a big party for his fiftieth birthday, inviting all of our friends and family. Our house was overflowing. He surprised me by making it a party for our twenty-fifth anniversary, also. That was a very sweet surprise, but it turned a little sour when, two months later on our actual anniversary, he had absolutely nothing planned except going to visit a friend of his that had come in town. He didn't even give me a card. I knew we couldn't afford a cruise or even a weekend away, but couldn't we have had a nice evening out by ourselves - dinner or dancing? We used to go dancing all the time - I love to dance. After all, we met when he asked me to dance. I wouldn't have given him the time of day if he hadn't known how to two-step.
In all fairness, I didn't plan anything for our anniversary either, although I'm pretty sure I gave him a card. And I know he doesn't enjoy dancing because ten years ago he was in a head-on collision. He broke a rib, his hip and his foot, and the steering wheel sliced his face down the middle. You can barely see the scars, but he feels the aches all the time. It makes dancing hard, but he'll still two-step with me - a slow one - if the occasion arises.
So his "happy anniversary" was a nice surprise this morning. It feels good to know that, even though he tends to ignore me most of the time, he still considers Friday the 13th a lucky day.
I know I do.
